With the dog days upon us, and a slowdown in football news coming, I figured I’d throw this one out for some older jets fans. The Idzik 12, is that not only the worst jets class of all time, but the worst nfl draft class of all time? Only 1 player got a 2nd contract, Enunwa (who I liked) but I wanna say either the next year or the year he signed it his career was over. Additonally, his draft before that with Sheldon, Millner and Geno. Is it fair to say he missed on every pick in that draft as well? Nobody got a 2nd contract with the Jets, and Sheldon was the 9th pick I think? And he was traded for a 2nd rd pick and Jermaine Kearse. Am I nuts by saying that: A-Idzik missed on EVERY pick he had B-He’s the worst GM in any sport C-The Idzik 12 is the worst class in NFL history ?
Dakota Dozier actually signed a bunch of 1 year deals with the Vikings and bears. But yea, it's probably up there with all time worst drafts. The problem was that Idzik didn't trade any of those picks. Too many 4th and 6th rounders.
I mean, Sheldon Richardson was the NFL rookie defensive player of the year, and Geno is still playing meaningful games at QB. Others in the organization other than Idzik played a role too.
Clearly Idzik had no business being an NFL GM, so let's put the blame where it belongs - Our Woody. If I remember correctly this was the hire that Woody decided to rely on a national executive recruiting firm to hire. Shear brilliance! Now run off to London and let your kid brother hire a GM (Douglas) Idzik's inability to trade picks, move up or down within a draft etc. proved that he was not fully qualified to run a draft. It's reasons like this that keep me in the Joe Douglas camp. I can't trust the owner to find someone better than JD. In fact, I'd say he can't do it.
Part of it wasn't entirely his fault. Idzik joined as GM right when the Jets were in the midst of a rocky rebuild for anyone. Vets like Bart Scott, Revis, Cromartie, Holmes, Sanchez and even Tim Teblow were liked in different ways by Jets fans and the current construction was not sustainable. So releasing or trading ALL of those guys, while probably needed, was going to put him in an unpopular place with the fans. Of course his draft picks were bad though, no excuses there. he was really bad at the PR battle. Joe Douglas can spin anything, he has some epic misses but has friends in the media that throw praise on his every move. Idzik didn't have that, which is kinda weird because he was actually a Jets legacy guy, Joe D has no ties to this organization or city.
Idzik came in like Winston Wolf and wiped all evidence of the previous regime clean and then disappeared without a trace. Okay well the traces were 11 really shitty draft picks but still, pretty efficient cleaner.
I somewhat struggle with this. If the organization drafts a player, but they either let him walk or trade him-are they still considered a “hit”? I could see it either way
The off-season has become an under the radar reason to self-harm. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers Wow, that's a bad jam. Don't anybody be stealing it. Copyright, I mean it.
IDK if any of the above is true-- they may be. It is definitely true that he set the franchise back a solid decade with his personnel management.
It's one thing to blow a draft.... it's a whole next level fail, when you do it in a draft STACKED with talent! Every other team got better as the JETS got worse under his watch....
He was terrible all the way around. He got some credit at the time for cutting bloated salaries but they were all no brainers even at the time…Holmes, etc. Strategically - it’s asinine to have a 12 pick draft…no way you’re keeping that many rookies…he should have used several of those picks to trade up to get a better player or trade out for next year picks…stupid to keep and use all of them. Tactically - he blew just about every pick…Sheldon was a good pick even though we didn’t keep him but he balled out that rookie year and continued to play well for other teams once we let him go…probably a guy we should have kept but I think that was on Mac’s watch. Enunwa was also a good pick. That’s about it. He sucked. Period. It was a bad hire coming out of a terrible process…I know Korn Ferry, I’ve worked with them directly in hiring…but they are a business search firm…clearly no clue how to run a recruiting / hiring process for an NFL team. Of course we compounded the error by following up that terrible hire with another one in Mac, using again, a terrible hiring process. I liked the idea of going to football experts to help in the search, so from an idea standpoint that wasn’t terrible, but in execution it showed just how fucking idiotic Woody is because he chose Charley fucking Casserly, who hadn’t done jack squat shit since the 1980s Redskins teams, to lead that search. He was already old and out of touch. Just goes to show…as long as Woody is calling the shots, we will ALWAYS be fighting with BOTH hands tied behind our backs. Forget bringing a knife to a gunfight metaphor…we are coming into the gunfight with both hands tied behind our backs and wearing a blindfold to boot. We will ALWAYS be behind as long as that fucking moron is calling the shots.
So we’re all in agreement that this was not only the worst class of all time, but he’s the worst of all time? And btw, nobody really believed he didn’t spend $ to Sabatoge Rex, right?
Rex did enough to sabotage himself. That wasn’t a long term head coaching solution even if he did spend. Idzik was an awful talent evaluator himself and it all falls on his shoulders. But if I remember correctly, he didn’t get to hire anyone in the scouting department or front office so everyone was holdovers. We also had several GM’s turn down even interviewing for the job because they knew what mess they were walking into with the mandates to trade Revis, keep Rex, keep the org intact, etc. He also had a cap nightmare of aging veterans from Tanny’s fuck the future moves. Not saying this absolves him of awful personnel decisions because his draft was epically bad. I do think he had the right idea and it wasn’t too dissimilar from Douglas’s methodology. Endure the pain for a year or two, build up a big draft stockpile and cap budget to rebuild the team. He just sucked at picking the right players.
I remember feeling a bit bad for him at the time (before his historic draft panned out). Hess or Woody, can't remember, brought him in to clean house. He did. Jets had the most cap of any team, like over $100m. Even rolled $20m+ cap into the following season. Then the hammer fell!
Great ideas don't go far if you can't execute them.... well in this case the JETS literally "execute" good plans...
He was the worst GM I've seen. Who would say he was not at minimum terrible? I think this kind of debate works is if it's a GM that has success. Danny Ainge for example. I could debate how he was an awful GM propped up by one move from an even worse franchise (the nets).
